Chapter-3

After that night—the night her heart was ripped out in silence—Meher was never the same.

Her laughter, once soft and genuine, vanished without a trace.

Her eyes, once wide and shimmering with dreams, dimmed into something lifeless.

She moved through the days like a ghost trapped in a porcelain shell—delicate, beautiful, but empty.

She went to the hospital each morning, her white coat hugging her body like armor. She performed surgeries with mechanical precision, answered questions with hollow calm, and smiled with the barest stretch of lips when spoken to.

But no one really saw her anymore. Not the real her.

Because the real Meher had stopped living.

At night, she returned to the one place that had ever felt like home—St. Agnes, the orphanage she’d lived in since she was eight. Nestled on the quieter side of Marseille, it stood like a warm pocket of childhood memories in a world that had only ever known how to take from her.

Even there, she wore a mask. The caretakers asked, the children asked, even Sister Marie—the woman who had practically raised her—gently tried to coax something out of her.

But Meher only smiled and said the same words every time:

“Nothing happened. I’m fine.”

Days turned to weeks. Weeks blurred into a month.

Her life became a silent routine—no music, no color, just the dull rhythm of existing.

Until one day, as she was reviewing a patient’s report in the hospital's glass-panelled corridor, her superior, Dr. Étienne Laurent, approached with an unreadable look.

“Dr. Meher, there’s a notice from the board.”

She looked up, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“You’re being transferred to our India branch. Mumbai.”

She blinked, stunned. “Sir... it’s too sudden. Why? I mean—what happened?”

He sighed. “I don’t have all the details, but the directive came from the top. They said Mumbai needs a leading cardiologist, and you’re the best we’ve got here. Honestly, it feels like a request from someone with strong influence.”

Her brows furrowed faintly, but she nodded. “Okay, sir...”

Later that evening, Meher stood on the terrace of the orphanage, staring at the soft lights of Marseille.

France.

Her country. Her home.

The place where she’d learned to walk, run, dream, fall, and survive.

She had grown up with the scent of baguettes in morning bakeries and the sound of the sea crashing against old stone piers. She had watched the Eiffel Tower shimmer from afar on school trips and spent late nights curled up in a dormitory bunk bed reading French novels under a blanket with a flashlight.

This land had been her everything.

France wasn’t just where she lived. It was the only place she had ever belonged.

Now, she was being asked to leave. Just like that.

Not by choice. Not for happiness.

But because life—yet again—had made a decision for her.

That night, she couldn’t sleep. She sat by her window, legs tucked under her, staring at the quiet street below.

Her heart whispered things she didn’t want to hear.

Memories she’d buried deep resurfaced like ghosts.

Her boyfriend—the man she had trusted for five years—had married someone else without even offering her a goodbye. No explanation. No fight. No breakup.

Just… silence.

He had shattered her heart with his actions, but it was the silence that haunted her.

He hadn’t even loved her enough to end it properly.

Was she that easy to forget?

And her best friend—Rhea—the one who’d been like a sister, had disappeared without a word right before everything fell apart. As if she too had turned into smoke.

Everyone had left.

Her parents, when she was barely old enough to understand.

Her brother, who never came looking for her after the accident.

Her friend.

Her love.

Even God, it seemed, had abandoned her.

She requested two weeks of leave from the hospital—her last before the move—and spent each day wandering the streets of France, saying goodbye to places that had once been chapters of her story.

She visited her old school in Lyon, where she first dreamed of becoming a doctor.

She walked barefoot along the beaches of Nice, letting the ocean pull at her grief.

She ate her favorite croissants from the corner café run by Monsieur Gérard, who always remembered her name.

She sat alone on a bench near the Seine in Paris, her eyes wet as couples passed by hand in hand.

And through it all, she carried an ache so deep it felt like a second skin.

Not just because she was leaving France.

But because she had nowhere to go to.

India was foreign to her—her birthplace, yes, but not her home. She hadn’t been there since she was a child. And now she was being sent there, to a city she didn’t know, for reasons she didn’t understand.

She didn’t feel ready.

But no one had ever asked her if she was.

On her final night in Marseille, she stood on the orphanage rooftop again, watching the stars blink in a velvet sky.

Children’s laughter echoed faintly from below. The sound pierced something soft inside her.

This orphanage had been her sanctuary for seventeen years.

Now she had to say goodbye.

She bit her trembling lip, eyes glistening.

“Will I ever belong anywhere... again?” she whispered to the wind.

She didn’t have the answer.

But somewhere far away, in a city pulsing with chaos, danger, and fate, the man destined to collide with her life was about to receive news of a new doctor joining his hospital.

Their paths were about to cross.

And the quiet ache in Meher’s soul was about to meet a storm more destructive than anything she had known.

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